Yesterday's issue was definitely dodgy cheap tennis balls not bouncing like you'd expect them to. Incrediballs are much better bets when you want to find the middle of the bat.

A good couple of sessions this afternoon with the County 10s and 11s - particularly enjoyed working with the older keepers, where - for the first time in living memory - we actually have competition for places of a positive kind (as opposed to looking for the least permeable pair of gloves).

@Neil I can't find your post where you talked about how to get kids to bowl for the first time.
Can you recommend any drills please. It is for my 9 year old nephew.

I got great enjoyment shouting "WHY THE **** ISN'T THIS GAME BEING PLAYED AT THE BASIN?!>!?!?" to reasonably significant cheers from the sparse crowd

one day NZ will bring chappell to his knees in a puddle of his own tears and you'll see Phlegm on his belly greedily tasting every delicious tear before watching the hope fade from that old ****s eyes.

Back in the full routine of the county "off-season" now - 9 hours' coaching over the last couple of days via three district squads and two county squads. Unbelievably satisfying to do the County U10s and U11s back to back, and see the massive step up in quality the older ones demonstrate thanks to their year's experience. We did one fielding drill of superbly high standards, midway through which (having taken a few balls that fizzed, hard, into the gloves) I have been forced to conclude that the standard of cricket I coach is far higher than that which I play.

First preseason club net this evening and probably my only one as I'll be back at Uni. Since my 'conversion' to bowling seam ups I can conclude a number of things (1) bowling bouncers is fun (2) I get a strange satisfaction out of hitting/scaring people (3) taking poles with yorkers is also fun.

Ordered myself a 2lb 12 Redback Paradox too which should be ready in about a fortnight. Can't wait. Will be interesting how I go with the extra weight. My other bats have been 2.8/2.9 + an extra grip.

Light bat fan here. Need all the help I can get to keep the ball out of cow corner.

Actually, Mr Cabinet, let me pick your brains a moment. I have been left lead-coaching an U15 squad for the first time this winter (my experience is massively based with U10/U11 where the content is basics, introduction and development). Obviously "this is what a forward defensive is" won't wash so well with older ones - you must have recent experience of good-level youth cricket etc, can you give me some pointers on effective drills or particularly areas worth focusing on?

I am intending on structuring the (1 hour 30) session broadly as: 15' warm-up; 15' fielding; 20' skill input/drill focus; 30' net. That gives 10' overspill. However I am looking at a 10-week programme right now and thinking "where do I get five hours of good drills from?"

Haha, I play proper shots and am pretty sick of not getting full value for them. Rather than drive to mid on and cover I want to be able to drive through them
Apparently I hit the ball pretty damn hard as it is so should be good fun.

Coaches for me in the last few years have only really done specific tinkering. Such as making sure I move my head forward before my front foot etc...which I prefer, as I obviously have gone though the very basics a lot, and feel like I know my basic technical problems and what not. In the last two years of my time of getting a lot of youth coaching (it's pretty much finished now ) I started to appreciate the use of tennis ball throw downs and bobble feeds, but I always found half of the people I trained with just took the piss, and were trying to show off about how hard they could hit a tennis ball dribbling towards them. In that respect, bowling machines would probably be a better way to get the kids really into the stuff they're doing, but I appreciate that can be hard if you have big numbers.

I can't say I ever got a huge amount of batting coaching though, so I can't suggest much more than just bowling machines and tennis ball bobble feeds, with really specific technical work. I was usually considered a bowler and only really got a couple of serious one to one sessions in my two year period at London Schools. I always wish I'd done more drills in my training sessions, though admittedly I wasn't like the most kids I played with in that respect. I was always a bit "keen".